Parker T. Williamson
Editor emeritus and senior
correspondent of The Layman
On August 9, The Layman Online published documents that came
into its possession bearing the Presbyterian seal and purportedly signed
and copyrighted by Presbyterian Church (USA) lawyers. Popularly referred
to as the “Louisville Papers,” these documents are creating
quite a stir across the denomination. They are being quoted in numerous
publications, and in civil court pleadings in California, Oklahoma,
Louisiana and New York. They comprise the subject line for internet
blogs and coffee table conversations in thousands of Presbyterian homes.
Virtually every Presbyterian leader is talking about them.
Everyone, that is, except the stated clerk.
Clifton Kirkpatrick knows his way to the press room. He’s been
there on numerous occasions, boycotting Yum! Brands, Inc., muscling
McDonalds, posing with Fidel Castro, promoting a hike in the minimum
wage, and repeatedly asking Presbyterians to pursue peace with one
another.
But the draconian counsel perpetrated by his chief legal officer has
done a number on this clerk’s credibility. At the very time that
Kirkpatrick was calling for peace, his lieutenants were advising middle
governing body executives to freeze bank accounts, seize church
property, defrock ministers, oust sessions and sue individual elders
deemed ornery because they consider distancing themselves from the
denomination’s grasp.
The clerk has not denied that his office did the deed. In fact, that
would be difficult to do, given admissions by presbytery executives who
have stepped forward with evidence. But neither has there been any
apology, retraction or discipline of the officers.
Denouncing the Louisville Papers as “unBiblical tactics [that]
fundamentally forsake and damage the connectional nature of our
community,” the session of Community Presbyterian Church in
Ventura, California is castigating the clerk for his unwillingness to
repudiate what his office has done. “This lack of repudiation,”
said the Ventura church in a proposed resolution to Santa Barbara
Presbytery, “feeds the fear that those who would exercise freedom
of speech will face preemptive retaliation. The result is
connectionalism through intimidation and the ruin of Biblical peace,
unity and purity. Further, it forces churches to consider how they may
defend themselves against possible legal action raised against them by
their own denomination even as they pursue efforts to faithfully fulfill
the great commission of Christ and the Great Ends of the Church
described in the constitution.”
There is something disingenuous and hypocritical about a General
Assembly and its staff that plead with the congregations to engage in “a
season of discernment” while seeking to punish those that do so.
The irony is that in the name of “peace, unity and purity,”
this denomination’s highest elected official is waging war against
the very congregations he pledged to serve. It won’t work, of
course. Coercion is a loser’s game, the desperate act of leadership
that soon will be history.
The stated clerk cannot deny what his office has done. What he can do is
repent of the damage that he has inflicted on those whom he has a duty
to serve. Before his next trip to the press room, he can fire Mark
Tammen, his top legal lieutenant and the chief counsel for the
Louisville Papers, calling off the confiscatory assaults and strong arm
attacks that have been engineered on his watch.
A column by Parker T. Williamson, editor emeritus and senior
correspondent of The Layman.